marimo as a Colab alternative
marimo run anywhere as a notebook, webapp or a CLI. Even beyond Google's servers, with full control over your data, hardware, and security.
Google Colab is great for getting started, but you hit limits fast. Your data must interact with Google’s servers, you can’t run colab on your own hardware, and git workflows are painful. marimo gives you full control while keeping the notebook experience you love.
marimo can run anywhere
You need to run marimo yourself, but you can run it anywhere. This control matters for real work. Need GPUs? Use your own or any cloud provider. Have sensitive data? Keep everything on your servers. Work at a company with strict security? Run marimo behind your firewall with access to internal databases.
Colab forces you to send data to Google and limits your hardware choices. marimo runs on your infrastructure with your rules. Connect directly to PostgreSQL, Snowflake, or any database without worrying about data leaving your control.
marimo and git
While not impossible, Colab notebooks are hard to add to private git repositories. marimo notebooks are Python files that work great with version control, and uv support makes notebooks self-contained. Even if you’re able to store the notebook in git, the .ipynb files create messy git diffs full of execution counts and output data. marimo notebooks are clean Python files that show real code changes in git diffs.
Another benefit of using Python files under the hood is that you can benefit from modern improvements to the language. The uv integration means that notebooks include their own dependencies. Share a marimo notebook and anyone can run it without guessing what packages to install. No more “works on my machine” problems or complex setup instructions.
marimo has deployment options
Need to share results with non-technical users? Run marimo run notebook.py to create a web app. Want to automate analysis? Use python notebook.py from the command line or in scripts. Want to run the tests in your notebook? Use pytest notebook.py to run those.
Colab only works in the browser with Google’s interface. marimo gives you flexibility - develop interactively, deploy as web apps, or automate as CLI tools. One notebook, many ways to use it.
Better for real projects
Colab works fine for learning, quick experiments, or sharing simple tutorials. marimo works better for real projects where you need control, security, and professional workflows.